the ’38 schwinns progression…

so i’ve been bouncing from idea to idea about what i want to do with my ’38 Schwinn Straightbar 26″ guys bike, and i think i’ve finally settled on one.

it’s going to end up something fairly close to what it originally was, an around town, city kind of bike, just more updated.

instead of the original 26″ Schwinn sized rims, it’s going to be rolling on a set of Velocity Blunt SL 650b’s. in classic tradition, Sturmey-Archer will be providing hubs, an X-RD8(w) eight speed drum brake hub in the rear, and an XL-FDD 90mm drum brake dynamo hub up front. the front fork is an eBay find for 50 bucks off of 2010 Masi Speciale Ltd., it needs to be cut down and threaded.

i want to run a fun bar on this bike, but something fairly useful as well, so i settled on the Soma Lauterwasser alloy bar connected to a NITTO Dynamic (NTC-A) quill stem. the bar and stem will be connected to the bike through, of course, a quintessential Chris King 1 1/8″ headset (the headtube will be modified to fit the standard 1 1/8 size). out back will be a Wald seatpost and Brooks B72 saddle in black. think big old rack up front and a small bag out back.

of course there are a lot of things to do, change out the dropouts to a set of Paul Components single speed jobs, fittings for the internal hub, modifications and etc. galore.

in the end, i think it’ll be better than it started, so that’s all that matters 🙂
-peter